The trip was supposed to have been to Faro, Portugal. The customer wanted to travel there with his wife for nine days at a price of 4,548.26 euros. He booked the trip with a travel agency in June last year. However, he canceled it on the same day. The company then debited a cancellation fee of 3,859.21 euros from its account. The man didn’t want to accept that and filed a claim for reimbursement from his travel contract in civil court proceedings before the Munich District Court.
In the hearing before the district court, the husband claimed that he only found out after he had booked the trip that there was a construction site next to the hotel in Faro. He wanted to find out more about rebooking on the Internet, but canceled the trip “unintentionally” and because of the “confusion of the travel agency’s homepage.”
The representative of the defendant company, however, pointed out that the plaintiff had not provided any precise information about the construction site. And incidentally, his booking was effectively canceled. Several individual steps are necessary for a “final cancellation”. An “unintentional termination” is simply “impossible” in the system. According to the defendant travel agency, the plaintiff’s withdrawal caused him damage. The district court agreed with this argument and dismissed the man’s lawsuit.
In its ruling, the court points out that both parties had “undisputedly” concluded a travel contract, which was later canceled by the plaintiff. The court ruled out the possibility that he had accidentally canceled the trip he had booked. Of course, it can happen that you accidentally click on something. However, it seems “unrealistic” that when the booking was canceled, as in the present case, “there was a ‘click’ every time with a total of five different steps, and thus an error in the declaration,” it says in the reasons for the judgment.
It is “incomprehensible” that the click when the booking was canceled was said to have happened “accidentally” and did not correspond to the plaintiff’s wishes. The court was convinced that the plaintiff was aware that he had made a final cancellation and not just a rebooking, as alleged. By withdrawing from the travel contract, the company was entitled to demand compensation in the amount of 3,859.21 euros. There is therefore no entitlement to a refund. The plaintiff’s “blanket claim” that there is a construction site next to the hotel does not lead to a contractual obligation on the part of the travel company to find alternative solutions. The district court’s judgment is not yet legally binding (ref. 275 C 20050/23).